Collect🥀ion 🏅of Spencer Churchill, Northwick Park, London.

Christie's London, 24th May 1965, lot 125.

Hugh M. Moss Ltd, Hong Kong, 1977.

Spencer Churchill 收藏，諾斯威克公園，倫敦

倫敦佳士得1965年5月24日，編號125

莫士撝，香港，1977年

Jane Turner, ed., TheDictionary of Art, vol. 7, London, 1997, p. 134.

Jane 🌺Turner 編，《The Dictionary of Art》，卷7，倫敦，1997年，頁13🤡4

Gerard Tsang and Hugh Moss, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, jointly presented by the Oriental Society of H⛄ong Kong and the Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong, 198🦩6, cat. no. 84.

Hotওung Gallery, British Museum, London, on loan, 1✃998-2005.

曾柱昭及莫士撝，《文玩萃珍》，香港東方陶瓷學會及香港大學馮平山博物館合辦，香港，1986年，編ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ號84

何鴻卿爵士中國與南亞展廳，大英博物館，倫敦，1998-2005年，借展

Very few brushpots are 🅘known in soapstone and the present piece represents the only example known from the hand of a master carver. 

Zhou Bin, also known as Shang Jun, was a native of Zhangzhou in Fujian province. Chinese sources traditionally place him during the Kangxi period. It has also been suggested, though not conclusively proved, that he originally studied under Yang Yuxuan and later worked as an imperial craftsman in the Palace workshops of the Kangxi Emperor. Paul Moss highlights that it is unusual to find such a "very fine brushpot" by Zhou who is more known for his figures and seal carving (Catalogue to the exhibition Documentary Chinese Works of Art. In Scholars' Taste that, Sydney L Moss Ltd, London, 1983, p. 186).

According to Hugh Moss, who discusses the piece at length in Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Hong Kong 1986, cat. no. 84, the source of the design is one of a series of playing cards by the artist Chen Hongshou printed in 1653 in a woodblock edition and, hence, the brushpot musඣt have been carved after that date.

Although the rendition of the seated scholar and the entire scene on the outside of the brushpot is, in its naivete, somewhat atypical of Zhou Bin, the superb quality of the chilong medallion on the base, with its minutely incised wave ground, is unmistakable as from his hand, and compares very closely with the elaborate decoration found on luohan cushions, such as the example illustrated by Moss and Tsang in Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Hong Kong 1986, cat. no. 44.